take me from your heart (and cut me clean)
by imperfectandchaotic
Summary: He says, "Go with Scott," and she's not sure why but it feels like a betrayal. (aka obligatory finale feels fest.) [9th and final fic in the 'toss me a heavy rope' series]


**take me from your heart (and cut me clean)**

**Notes:** obligatory finale feels fest. contains a large amount of lysaac, and canonical references to stalia. so late.

Finally. I know. Thanks for sticking this out with me, guys. This series is officially over since I think I want to start fresh with season four, but I will definitely still be writing and shipping and feeling all the things with all of you. I'm 'marlahey' on Tumblr if anyone would like to join me in the weeping over there, but thanks again for reading this series and supporting my writing and being so generous with the favourites.

(although I'd love to hear what you actually thought :P)

Dedicated to my dear friend Kris, who cheerleaded me through the last 2k of this fic without even knowing it. I love you.

* * *

He says, "Go with Scott," and Lydia isn't sure why but it feels like a betrayal.

"But–"

"Please."

_But I just got you back._

_But we have to go to the station,_ Lydia wants to protest. _We have to go down there and tell another horrible lie and I have to look your father in the eye and tell him I couldn't–_

But Stiles is giving her that pleading look, the one that says_ I can't protect you_ and as much as Lydia wants to snap back in anger, there isn't room enough for it. So she nods instead and feels like a failure. Stiles lifts a hand like he wants to touch her, but even the dark his fingers shake and the gaping hole in Lydia's chest pulls wider.

_Allison._

"Call me," _whenyou'renotdying_ "after."

She's never made him promise but he's never let her down, either.

Stiles nods his head once. Before Lydia can turn away though he surges forward, catching Lydia's breath in her lungs as he crushes her against him and buries his face in her hair.

"Don't you dare say it," she warns against his throat. "Don't you dare say it should've been you."

Stiles goes very still. When he pulls back, his eyes are glassy.

"Lydia," prompts Scott softly from Mr. Argent's car. "Come on."

How Scott can even speak right now is beyond her. Isaac's expression in the backseat will haunt her for days. Lydia recalls that resolve she had in the woods all those weeks ago: if Scott can survive, so must she.

Stiles watches them pull away; Lydia keeps her eyes on him until he's a ghostly smudge in the overwhelming dark. When he's gone, the voices whispering _death is coming_ start to scream.

—

_I didn't see_.

It's all she needs to say (because it's _not even a damn lie_) but the words are stuck in her throat. Stiles' father sits to her left while a stranger leans back on his boss' desk. They have asked what happened. She cannot respond.

Lydia can't look at the Sheriff so she looks at her hands instead; a perfect manicure is chipped and she picks at it until her fingers tremble. If she looks at the Sheriff she will cry.

If she starts crying now she will never stop.

The handsome new deputy, (P-something, Patrick?) ducks his head a little to catch her gaze. He has beautiful eyes: a clear, pale green, and a kindness around his mouth.

"Isaac says he pushed you between the seats," he begins gently, and a faraway part of Lydia smarts at the notion of how weak that makes her sound. "That they didn't even see you when he, Scott, and Allison got out of the car."

Lydia thinks of the cramped dark of that godforsaken corridor and finds it morbidly fitting. She nods mechanically.

"You weren't able to see anything at all?"

Isaac's haunted face flashes in her mind's eye; Scott had looked as though an entire part of him was gone, some vital organ or a limb, like he'd never be whole again.

And Allison.

Lydia can feel a sob rising in her throat, the hot press so sharp that she fears even the motion of shaking her head will betray her and send tears flying.

"I think that's enough, Parrish." The Sheriff says, not unkindly.

The deputy nods. "I'll be right outside, sir."

Parrish straightens and even that is lovely: graceful and light and all Lydia can think suddenly is that if—if Allison were here—her fingers would be pinching at Lydia's shirt in a silent_ beautiful boy aler_t and they would giggle in the car the whole way home.

But Allison isn't here—she will never be _here_ again—and that thought coupled with Sheriff Stilinski's warm hand on her arm is enough to rattle her resolve so hard that Lydia's insides tremble. She blinks hard, twice, four times, tries to breathe without the sound shuddering on the way out—

_we're not safe yet_.

"Stiles?" the Sheriff asks quietly, sounding way more calm than he ought to be, in Lydia's opinion.

She has to swallow twice before she can croak, "Kira's. Her parents...they're trying to help us."

A long pause.

"I wish…" Stiles' father sighs and it's a pained sound. Lydia wants to disappear. "I wish none of this was happening to you. To any of you."

It is almost a blessing that Scott's head appears in the door before she can reply.

"We have to go."

As if on cue, her phone rings.

_"Deaton's,"_ Stiles says in lieu of a greeting.

"Are you okay?"

_"I'm drinking tea."_

She wants to laugh suddenly, painfully, and after a moment hates herself for it. "Is it helping?" Lydia is hyperaware of the Sheriff, still like stone beside her, burning a hole in the back of her head with that protective be-all-end-all parental gaze.

_"Dunno yet. But you and Scott have to go to Deaton's. Ask him about the nematon."_

Of course. She has to suppress a shudder at the thought of revisiting that place. "What about you?"

_"I'll meet you there."_

"Let Kira drive," Lydia blurts, recalling in a burst of panic that gash on his forehead the night they'd taken on Jennifer.

_"Lydia–"_

"Stiles." She has to bite her lip to keep her voice from shaking. "Please."

A pause. Lydia listens to him breathe.

_"I'll see you there."_

"Be–" the line clicks, "–safe."

Lydia looks from her phone up to Scott, who just reaches over and extends a hand. "C'mon."

The Sheriff looks drawn and forlorn as they head out the door.

—

"Miss Martin?"

They are halfway through the bullpen full of pitying stares when Deputy Parrish reappears. He's holding a standard-issue styrofoam cup and that same warm, kind expression. Lydia looks from the cup to him, oddly unsure of what to do.

"It's tea," he says. "It'll help, a little."

She isn't sure if she believes him. The deputy's fingers are warm; Lydia has no idea how cold she is until she holds the heat of the tea in her hands.

"Thank you."

Even in her heels which make him barely a head taller than her, Lydia feels small. Parrish ducks his head again. There is something very safe in the clear steadiness of his gaze, a gentle wave of comfort that makes Lydia's throat tighten again.

"Be safe out there. And I'm–" Lydia finds herself practically flinching. "I'm sorry."

Parrish's tone is so sincere that it's all she can do to hold down a sob. Lydia swallows. The deputy offers no platitudes, doesn't try to touch her, just holds her eyes until Lydia's courage wanes and she has to look away. She should thank him, or something, but even those words are stuck somewhere and lost.

He doesn't seem to mind though, just watches as Scott nods at Isaac as the latter leaves with Mr. Argent. Scott beckons Lydia through the door of the sheriff's station, and as he holds it open for her, Lydia's eyes drag back.

Parrish is still there; he lifts a hand and if that could be a sombre gesture, it is in him.

Lydia looks back at him until she can't anymore.

—

They have a plan.

Lydia doesn't like the way Stiles struggles out of the jeep, the way he nearly collapses against the rail. So she shoves herself beneath his arm, takes his weight, says a thankful prayer for all the muscles Allison and Isaac forced her to develop.

That silent, painful _Allison_ space in her heart squeezes.

"I know what you're all thinking," Stiles says just against the threshold of the door. "That if this works it might kill me too."

Something in Lydia goes cold. "But even if it does, you just–you have to go through with it. Just stick with the plan, kay?"

"The plan is to save you," says Scott, with that unerring Alpha certainty. "That's the plan I'm going with."

Of course they open the doors just then and all their planning goes to hell.

—

The way Stiles goes rigid only makes the fear twist deeper in her stomach. If she hangs onto him, maybe it'l make her braver. There is even an inkling of recognition in Scott and Kira; Lydia isn't sure where she was during Nogistune 101, but one thing she knows for sure is that she's going to have nightmares regardless.

The Oni advance. Kira's knuckles are white against the handle of her katana, but Lydia cannot take her eyes from the ravaged shape that makes all the voices in her head clamour and shout.

"What the hell is this?" Scott demands, "Where are we?"

"Between life," leers the thing that was probably once a man, "and death."

"Bardo," Lydia recalls. It feels like another lifetime - that picnic bench and Kira's bright eyes.

"But there are no peaceful deities here, Lydia." Her skin crawls.

"You're dying, Stiles." It says it like it's prophetic. "And now everyone you care about is dying too."

"What?" Stiles' arm around her waist convulses. "What do you mean?"

"I've captured almost all the territories on the board, Stiles. The hospital. The sheriff's station—"

If her grip on his shirt is tight enough, Lydia can keep him from collapsing. Clear green eyes burst forward in her brain; a voice from far away whimpers, _please no._

"—and now," A mangled fist closes, "the animal clinic."

Scott looks about three seconds from leaping forward with claws and teeth. For the first time, Lydia wouldn't mind joining him.

—

"Do you know the ritual of _seppuka,_ Stiles?"

"No," Stiles says immediately. "And I don't want to."

It—he, the Nogitsune? (Lydia can't keep it straight in her head anymore)—advances, rambling on about horrific samurai traditions and it's a little much, too much for her to handle. Stiles' arm against her back is ironclad; she can't tell who it is that drags them backwards, him or her. Stiles is warm, but barely. One of the darker voices wonders if it's true.

Maybe he really is dying.

"I'm going to make your best friend kill you, Stiles. And you're going to let him. Because just like you…" It is less than a foot away and Lydia's breath shakes out in whimpers. "They're all going to die. Everyone touched by an Oni's blade. Unless…"

This version of Void shakes a finger. "…Scott kills you first."

"Why? Why are you doing this?" Stiles demands, sounding angrier than afraid for the first time. Lydia has to pull on the shoulder of his shirt to keep them together, her fear silencing any part of herself that isn't directly connected to Stiles right this second.

If it could smile, Lydia figures it would be doing so. "To win the game."

And then the Oni strike.

—

Lydia can't decide if it's fortunate or just sad that neither she nor Stiles have thus far been threatened with death-by-katana. Stiles had dragged her down behind a mostly unobtrusive rock; Lydia can only see flashes of black and red on white and the Nogitsune, dragging itself along the periphery like a prowling animal.

What follows will haunt Lydia for a long time.

Stiles' fingers wrap around the hilt and the blade of Kira's katana and Lydia finds she cannot do anything. She cannot shout or cry. She can only tremble while the voices in her head begin to scream anew; it feels like fists banging on walls and beneath it all Lydia can hear a voice that sounds too much like Allison.

_Nonononononononononono—_

And then the most acute relief she has ever felt.

Lydia doesn't question Stiles as he tells their friends to stop fighting, only drags herself closer to him as the Oni line up and take their last shots at Kira and Scott.

If she doesn't let go, if Lydia shoves her hand between Stiles' shirts and lays her fingers along the lines of his ribs, he can't do that to her again.

But it turns out she doesn't need to; Stiles' strength is failing him. Every step they take out of Bardo seems like a lifetime for him. Tremors pass from him to her and Lydia just hangs on tighter.

_You can do this_, insists the Allison voice inside her head._ You will survive._

Lydia hopes with all her heart that it's true.

And then of course (the real?) Void incapacitates both their wolf and their fox and the seed of doubt is sown.

—

It's honestly a miracle they haven't fallen backwards on their asses yet.

"Divine move?_ Divine move?_" This nightmarish version of Stiles fills the halls, pressing them back; the real Stiles' grip is so tight it hurts, but Lydia supposes hers must be too.

"I'm a thousand years old,_ you can't kill me!"_

"But we can change you!" It bursts from Lydia's lips and everything seems to stop. For the very first time the Nogitsune seems afraid and she will carry that victory to her grave.

"What?"

"You forgot about the scroll." Stiles' arm is around her shoulders; Lydia is oddly aware of every pad of his fingers.

"The Shugendō scroll," she adds almost spitefully, as if it needed any clarification. Void's jaw goes slack.

"Change the host," he whispers in that flat, horrified way. Stiles' grip tightens as he draws himself up.

"You can't be a fox and a wolf."

The death of Void will probably go down as one of the most horrific things Lydia has ever seen. Top ten at the very least.

But she can't deny the sharp satisfaction.

—

The relief at seeing Isaac is tempered by Stiles, who chooses that precise moment to pass out.

Of course.

There is something pressing on the periphery of her mind, but Lydia ignores it in favour of watching her hand rise and fall on Stiles' chest in time with his breathing.

"He's okay," Scott reminds her gently. "He'll be alright."

And then Stiles wakes up and she can breathe again.

"We're alive," Stiles says, as though he can't quite believe it. "Are we all alive?"

Lydia flinches. Isaac's fingers brush her shoulder.

"Yeah," Scott says after a beat. "We're okay."

_Lydia._

And then Allison's voice again, so soft and so sad.

_Aiden._

—

"Lydia!"

Stiles is calling after her—she can hear a stampede footfalls underneath her own—but Lydia doesn't stop. She can't. The voices swarm until they drown everything out; she can't even hear her own foolish prayer.

_Please no. Please please please please—_

The noise in her head reaches a frenzied pitch, like a kettle left to shriek on the stove as Lydia bursts through the doors. She refuses to believe it until she sees it—until she sees dark shapes: Derek's profile, Chris Argent holding Allison's crossbow, and Ethan, shaking over his brother's body.

Aiden.

Lydia turns away; somehow she knows Stiles is there before she can really see him, so she pitches forward into his arms.

He catches her, of course.

Lydia can't cry.

She can barely breathe.

Stiles just tangles his knuckles in her hair and holds her tighter.

—

Lydia doesn't speak to anyone for two days.

On the third, her mother must have gotten desperate, because there is a soft knock at her door.

"Your mom's worried about you," Stiles says through the open crack.

"And you?" Lydia replies blithely.

"And me." A beat. "As in, I am also worried about you. Not that your mom isn't a very nice albeit scary—"

"Stiles."

She hears him choke on a laugh, a familiar small puff of sound. "Sorry."

It feels silly, talking to a door, but for some reason Lydia can't find the courage to let him open it.

"I can't do this," she whispers, more to herself than to him. She presses her forehead against the off-white wood; Stiles is two inches away but _she can't do this_. Lydia hears a dull thud and wonders if he's done the same, if they are just two sides to the same coin that grief has just come to sweep away.

"It's not your fault, Lydia."

Something bursts open—a dam, the floodgates, her soul? Lydia wrenches the door open and there is Stiles, leaning on the frame with one arm above his head and wide eyes.

"Don't you dare."

"Lydia—"

"It _is_ my fault," she hisses, too blinded by this hot white anger to notice when Stiles backs her into her room. "Allison came to save _me._ Aiden thought he had to prove something to _me._ So don't you _dare—"_

Lydia's hands are striking at Stiles as though unconnected to her brain. Or maybe they are and hurting someone is the only thing she wants to do.

"Lydia." He catches her wrists before anything lands, his grip tight, his face pained. "Lydia, stop."

"It's all my fault!" Lydia repeats, struggling uselessly against him, shaking as sobs begin to crest up and crash in her throat, a frantic panic in her chest making it hard to breathe. _"It should have been—"_

_**"No."**_

Stiles has never hurt her before. But it hurts now when he jerks her forward, still gripping her wrists to keep her as his dark eyes bore into hers.

"If I'm not allowed to say it," Stiles says roughly, "You aren't allowed either."

It's like a candle has been snuffed out inside of her as Stiles releases her and goes to hold her face instead; their foreheads touch, like a brush of lips and some tiny voice in Lydia's heart breathes,_ kiss me._

"Not you, okay?" he says, a whisper cut in two. "Never you."

Stiles' expression blurs but Lydia will always recall that pain and that warmth and that tenderness, even as he pulls her forward into him. And even as she cries, clutching at him and trembling, Lydia is surprised when Stiles' fingers find a grip on the edges of her too-big t shirt and he presses his nose into her bare shoulder.

Stiles shakes too; Lydia feels the wet slide of his tears on her skin and somehow this is better and worse all at once.

—

There's a funeral.

The endless mass of people in black is like an ocean, deep and vast and more than Lydia could have imagined. Stiles wraps an arm around her back to keep her standing. Isaac hooks his pinky into hers. Students she has never spoken to arrive in droves.

Kira's eyes should never be so sad.

Her parents are here. So is Coach Finstock, the Yukimuras, Melissa and Agent McCall, the Sheriff, and even Deputy Parrish, who looks at Lydia from across the dark sea and holds her eyes. She remembers the warmth of that cup of tea and wishes she could smile.

Chris Argent speaks and it's a wonder that the white rose in Lydia's hand doesn't lose all its petals from her trembling.

As she stains her hands with soft earth, Lydia thinks she hears a wolf howl.

—

She lays a flower for Aiden.

Lydia lays the white rose to rest in one of the deeper clearings of the preserve, where the wind echoes—howls, really.

It's where Isaac finds her.

"I'm sorry," he says softly. She allows it because she knows he's sincere, that he regrets his distrust, that it's hard for him to see Ethan now, still in the midst of leaving town. Lydia has to take a breath before she can turn around. She hasn't seen Isaac since the funeral, been avoiding him really, because she has read the glances between him and Allison's father, seen the resolution, and known.

"I need you to say it," she says—pleads. "Otherwise I'm just going to be pretending it's not true."

Isaac lifts his head while Lydia's mind frantically tries to catalogue the shifting colour in his eyes.

"I'm leaving."

She would have thought she was out of tears, but that is clearly a lie as Lydia's throat tightens. She has to whisper when she asks, "Where?"

He runs a hand over his head and Lydia is rushed with an ache in her chest of how much she will miss him.

"France, first? With Mr. Arg—Chris. I'm supposed to call him Chris now, is that weird? And then..." Isaac smiles faintly and her heart breaks. "I've always wanted to visit the Big Easy."

A breeze lifts Lydia's hair; the sun swirls the colour of Isaac's eyes again and she thinks fleetingly that it should be a crime, for the weather to be so lovely when her heart is so sad.

"You're not coming back, are you?" It's not really a question.

The pain in Isaac's expression multiplies hers until she can't breathe.

He shakes his head.

A whimper escapes. Lydia wants to move her feet, to touch him one last time, but she can't.

Isaac has no such problem.

Their bodies collide in a clearing beneath the sun and it _hurts,_ even as Isaac's palm on her neck and his fingers in her hair are a balm against the pain of it. He buries his face in her hair, wrapping himself around her until Lydia doesn't have room for anything else in her heart but Isaac's lips pressing into the crown of her head and the sound of his voice as he says,

"I love you."

That just makes her cry harder.

Isaac's fingers trail up and down her spine until Lydia can breathe without it hitching in her chest. As she pulls back he takes her face in his hands again, thumbing tenderly at her tears; Lydia wraps her hand around his wrist so she can keep him just a little longer. Isaac leans down and touches their foreheads together.

"Tell me to stay."

They've been here before, she thinks distantly.

_Please just stay._

She can't say it. She won't.

Not when he looks so lost.

Lydia shakes her head.

There is a kind of vulnerability in Isaac's eyes—an oddly familiar feeling of _broken—that_ she can feel within herself, a kind of painful understanding that can never be eclipsed or put into real words, which is why Lydia lets it happen; she practically feels Isaac inhale before he lurches forward and captures her mouth, all desperation and grief and loneliness and she can't deny it either, that this pain feels as though it might swallow her up, and so her heart does the only sensible thing to protect itself, to shield itself with something good and light and warm, and kisses him back.

—

Isaac kisses her like he's dying - like it's the last beautiful and pure thing he will ever have the chance to do - and tears bloom behind Lydia's sun stained eyelids. The loss of Allison is a shadow between them, cold and dark and combatted only by the heat Lydia follows as she drags her fingers up the back of Isaac's neck. He shudders and that drag becomes a grip in his hair as Lydia's heart chants _keep him keep him don't let him go._

But she must.

Somehow they end up against a tree, still pulling and pushing as if they could heave each other out of this grief and come out a little better than heartbroken and lost. Isaac's hands press Lydia into the bark and something in her heart flutters, something that reminds her that she missed her chance all those years ago, at this, at Isaac's warmth and steadiness and _love,_ but then Lydia thinks of her best friend and that joy in her eyes the first time she saw Allison after that very first kiss and knows—she and Isaac will never do this again.

And they will be alright.

At least, one day.

When Isaac pulls back, Lydia is oddly distracted by his hand gently brushing her hair away from her face. It is as intimate a gesture as he's ever done, and here on the other side of well...that, she is surprised that it is no more or less than it was before; it is no more strange or unwelcome, no less tender or warm. She is as safe here with Isaac as she ever was, and in that certainty Lydia finds a sort of stillness—a stillness that she'll need now as Lydia refocuses on Isaac just in time to watch his face crumple.

"Hey," she starts, taking her turn to play the anchor and hold his face in her hands. "It's—"

But it's not okay.

Lydia would rather bleed than tell that lie.

"We're okay." Isaac flinches but Lydia just hangs on, forcing his eyes to hers even as his fill with tears. "We're okay, alright? You and me, we're always going to be okay. It's what Al—" she swallows, but her voice cracks anyway. "She would have wanted us to be okay."

It's Isaac's turn to latch on, anguish in his face as he whispers, "I didn't mean to fall for her."

Breathing hurts. "I know."

"I just—she was just—but I loved her, and..."

She wants to smile as if that would make this hurt less. "She knew, okay? She did."

There is a moment, the space between two heartbeats, in which Lydia finds herself elsewhere; she recalls very vividly the darkness of Stiles' jeep, the glow of the streetlights, and the closeness—and then she is there again as Isaac collapses against her and Lydia finds herself once again with armfuls of mourning werewolf.

They shouldn't have to keep coming back here.

It's all she can do to wrap her arms around Isaac and run her fingers up into the hair at the nape of his neck. He shivers again but he is beginning to really breathe instead of sob and that's better, isn't it? It has to be. Eventually (she's not sure how long, seconds, minutes, hours) Isaac stops shaking altogether.

He breathes.

She breathes.

"We're a pair, aren't we?" he murmurs into the space behind her ear. She breathes out a laugh.

"The worst."

Isaac pulls back again and Lydia brushes at his tears with the smallest side of her hand. "Don't do anything stupid overseas okay?"

He catches her fingers in his; she tries to commit the swirls of his callouses to memory. "If you're careful here."

Lydia tries to smile, unsure if it comes out right.

"I should go," Isaac says, sounding regretful for the first time. "Chris is waiting for me."

He leans forward and presses his lips to her temple one last time. Lydia is torn abruptly between holding her breath and breathing him in, but then the moment is gone and Isaac is peeling away.

"Isaac," she calls when he's a few feet away. He pauses just a second before turning around, as though he had to talk himself into it.

"Hmm?"

"I—" For some reason it's harder to say now that there's space between them. "I love you too, you know?"

He smiles and all Lydia can think is, _don't you dare forget this._

"Any chance of getting any of my shirts back?"

She wants to laugh and cry at the same time.

"Not a chance."

Isaac's grin goes soft. "They look better on you anyway."

Lydia watches him go until he's out of sight, until she has nothing left but the sun in her eyes and the breeze in her hair and the ending of something in her heart.

_There you go, Allison_, she thinks. _Breaking hearts left and right._

Allison's embarassed smile springs to mind.

Somehow this time it doesn't hurt as much.

—

Lydia meets Malia and the world does not implode.

There is a glint of mischief in the other girl's eye that reminds Lydia of Aiden; fondness and grief swell in her heart, but for the first time she does not feel like she's drowning.

Malia asks, "Do you know where I could find Stiles?" and something sharp and selfish in her wants to tell a lie, to keep that warm gaze to herself, but Lydia does not own Stiles, nor his kindness. So she fishes for her phone as Malia looks curiously at the flowers and candles and notes that overwhelm Allison's locker just down the hall.

She does not ask and Lydia is grateful.

There is a beat of silence on the line when she announces, "Malia's here."

Lydia does not think much of it that afternoon as Malia begins her 'training' with Scott. But she thinks about that silence now as she opens the door at one am to Stiles, who looks pale and drawn for the first time in weeks.

"Stiles?"

He holds up his keys. "Up for a drive?"

—

They drive for a long time.

Lydia doesn't ask where they're going or why Stiles leaves the window down, even though the night air is cooler than she would like for such a drive. She just props her elbow up on the side of the jeep and watches the roadside lights become fewer and fewer between. At a silent stop sign that rises from tall grass, he reaches into the backseat and offers her his lacrosse hoodie, which Lydia accepts with a faint smile.

She hasn't worn anything of Stiles' since that night with Isaac, but he doesn't need to know that.

Lydia shrugs out of her inadequate coat and pulls the sweater over her head, somehow unsurprised at the safety she finds in being engulfed in worn fabric and familiar boy scents. Isaac's shirts sit together in a bottom drawer — the pang of missing him is still too sharp for her to pull them out. Stiles is looking at her out of the corner of his eye; Lydia pretends not to notice as she pulls her hair away from her neck and resettles in her seat.

The road has been dark for a while now, so it almost hurts to look when a brightly lit diner materializes from practically nowhere.

"Promise we're not going to get murdered?" she asks as Stiles pulls into a stall and kills the engine. The diner has enormous windows all along its entrance, exposing the maybe six people inside who are clearly as not interested in sleep as they are: a few weary-looking drivers of the large trucks outside, a student staring glassy-eyed at her laptop, and a man contemplating the coffee in front of him as though it held the secrets to the universe.

Stiles' smile is a little sharp as he holds open the door. "Promise."

He ushers her in with a long sweep of his arm and Lydia has to smother a laugh.

"You are not allowed to order coffee," she says sternly as a kindly looking woman with a phone pressed to her ear points at an empty booth with a smile. There is less tension in his shoulders, here in the light, and as they sit down Lydia understands why.

"Stiles Stilinski, as I live and breathe."

He smiles, something young and unburdened in the tilt of his lips, and Lydia's breath nearly catches in her throat. She hasn't seen him smile like that since — _get off your cute little ass and dance with me_ — in a long time. Too long, probably. But Lydia would wager that she hasn't either.

And isn't that a depressing thought.

"Suzie," Stiles says with a nod, grinning even wider as the woman from earlier smacks him gently with the laminated menu in her hand. "Long time no see."

"That father of yours is a liar," Suzie says, half-accusing, half-amused. "You don't look healthy to me, you're all skin and bones!"

He flinches, almost imperceptibly, and it's with a look that is too knowing that Suzie turns to Lydia.

"And who's this beautiful creature you've dragged to parts unknown?"

"This is Lydia," Stiles says quickly. "Lydia Martin. Lydia, this is Suzie. Single-handedly keeping my dad and I from starving since...forever."

Suzie's eyes are so pale they're almost grey, but so bright and appraising that Lydia feels as though she might bend beneath such strange scrutiny.

_"The_ Lydia Martin, at last."

She feels her mouth fall open a bit at that, and glares across the table, where Stiles has busied himself with a menu. His ears are red.

"We're just friends," he says, practically scowling, and Lydia almost laughs again. Suzie looks between them for a beat, and Lydia has to marvel at Stiles' insistence, because here they are at an all-night diner, her clearly in his clothes, their feet just touching beneath the table.

What a pair, she thinks wryly.

Suzie's lips twitch, but she drops the subject as she pulls out a notebook and pen. "What'll it be, kids?"

"Waffles?" Stiles begins, "and curly fries, please."

Lydia can see Suzie's mouth pinch in disapproval, but she says nothing. "And for the lady?"

"Herbal tea?" Stiles says before she can refuse, like an offering. Or an apology. She can't read that look in his eyes. So Lydia just nods, smiling at Suzie, whose gaze has gone soft and tender.

"I'm very sorry to hear about your friend, you two."

For a moment, she cannot breathe. Across the table, Stiles looks equally stricken, before something unglues and he can speak.

"You...you heard about that?"

The woman nods, something solemn in the action that reminds Lydia very abruptly of Deputy Parrish. "Your father came in, a few days before the funeral."

Stiles' mouth drops open, but nothing comes out. He looks...betrayed? Lydia wants suddenly to reach across the table and take his hand. Suzie's eyes are tender again as she reaches over and touches Stiles' cheek. He leans into her hand, instinct in the reaction and Lydia looks away, out the window and into the dark, but the glare is bright and she can still see the tear that slips from Stiles' eye.

When she looks back, Suzie is gone and Stiles is brushing at his face.

"We used to come here a lot," he says before Lydia can even come up with something to say. "With my mom, before. And then—after."

She desperately wishes she had something to do with her hands; Lydia settles for twisting them together in the pocket of Stiles' hoodie. "Is she the one who gave you your unnatural affinity for curly fries?"

Stiles' grin is nostalgic, but there is gratitude behind his eyes. "My dad never understood."

When Suzie arrives with Stiles' food and Lydia's tea, Lydia reaches out and steals a fry.

Stiles just smiles.

—

She gives him about five minutes before she asks, "So are you going to tell me what's up, or do I have to guess?"

He pauses in mid reach for another fry.

"Is it Malia?"

Stiles swallows. Nods.

Lydia just waits.

Stiles puts down his fork and tells her the story.

When he's finished, Lydia reaches across the table and grabs Stiles' hand. He looks up from his vigil of the tabletop and she feels her heart in her throat when she tells him, "You did the right thing."

This is clearly what Stiles needed to hear; his shoulders slump and his fingers tighten around hers.

Lydia takes another sip of her tea.

Stiles doesn't let go of her hand.

—

Later, after Suzie shoos them from the diner, after they have returned to Beacon Hills and sit in the jeep in Lydia's driveway, after Lydia has finished reeling from the terrible things that the Nogitsune did to Stiles that she never truly understood, she turns to him and asks,

"Are you and Malia...a thing, now? Is that why—"

"No. I mean, yes?" He scrubs at his hair with both hands. "I don't know what she and I are."

Something in Lydia is afraid to ask, but she must.

"Stiles..." She almost loses her nerve. "Why did you ask me to come tonight?"

A beat. He looks at her, pale and close in the dark. "Because I know what _we_ are," he says, like it's obvious, like she should know too.

"Just friends?" Lydia asks with a wry smile, but Stiles' eyes are serious when he shakes his head.

"I don't think so," he says quietly; she has to force herself to inhale. His gaze flicks to hers again, quickly, as though they're both afraid to hang on and decide what any of this means. "Do you?"

Lydia has the distinct feeling of dangling off of a cliff.

"No," she breathes, and there in the dark space of the jeep something settles between them, a livewire gone still though a spark remains, and Lydia is so _aware_ of him, of all those things in her heart she could never name and every instance in which she thought, _this is it._

Because she and Stiles will never be _just_ anything.

They'll just be.

* * *

**More Notes: **This literally took me forever. I'm sorry if the ending feels a bit rushed - the direction changed several times though the very last scene has been on a similar vein since I started writing this the week after the finale aired – sorry it took so long, I was teaching and marking and then Isaac looked so sad and then lysaac happened and that was more emotionally compromising than I had thought it would be, haha.

(also: a ton of music (obviously) carried me through the conception and development of this series, and I was thinking of making an 8tracks mix for it, is that something anyone besides Kris would be interested in? leave me a message on my tumblr if so!)

You are all amazing,

Annie


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